Education as a Common Good Essay 2022

Running head: EDUCATION AS A COMMON GOOD
Education as a common good
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

EDUCATION AS A COMMON GOOD
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Education provides the important and significant opportunity to the individuals to
understand the worldly affairs and critically analyze them (Melé, 2009). In this regard, it can be
noticed that education aids in the improvement of the intellectual intelligence of the people.
Education has been inexistence in the world since times immemorial. Although, it might not
have taken up a formal shape in the ancient days, the primary motive remained the same. A
teacher was entrusted with the responsibility of imparting important sociological and worldly
lessons to his or her pupils with the main objective of transforming them in to enlightened
individuals of the society (Peña-López, 2015). The purpose of this essay is to understand the
unequal division of the educational resources within the various individuals of the world and
how it led to the generation of educational inequality. In this respect, the idea of common good
has been looked in to and examined. Furthermore, the essay has also proposed certain strategies
which would be helpful in mitigating this challenge as faced in the contemporary world order.
The turn of the twenty first century has brought about major changes in the structuring of
the world order. In the ancient days, the government of the various nation states of the globe did
not emphasize on the improvement of the living standard of the individuals. However, in the
contemporary period of human history, the state leaders are trying to ensure that their citizens are
able to lead a decent and quality standard of life (Gottemoeller, 2015). In this regard, they have
placed more emphasis on the responsibility and obligation of the state governments.
The idea of shared common good refers to the obligation of the state leaders to ensure
that the people of the world are able to live a dignified life (Heyer, 2016). In this regard, it refers
to the sharing of all those resources which are beneficial to the individuals belonging to a certain
community. This broader idea of common good differs within the realm of philosophical
doctrines. In the contemporary world order, the idea of common good has found its ground

EDUCATION AS A COMMON GOOD
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within the social choice theory. In this context, common good refers to the idea that it needs to be
an activity related to social welfare.
The field of education belongs to the non-excludable and non-rivalrous segment of
common good. This means that education should be made freely available to the public as it is
present in abundance and there is no existing competition among the people to avail this item of
common good (Hulten, 2017). This is important to understand because knowledge aids in the
development of the society along with the improvement in the character and personality of the
individuals. If this field was made accessible to all the individuals of the society, then it would
provide the important base for them to improve upon their standard of living (Bhardwaj, 2016).
However, within the contemporary world order, the availing of education has proved to
be challenging since the field of education has been made more capitalist in nature. This means
that education can only be afforded by them who have the financial means to do so. It has placed
a huge conundrum on the idea of common good of the people. Since education has been made
more capitalist in nature, there is a need to reform this field so that it becomes affordable for all
the individuals of the society to afford being educated (Kanematsu & Barry, 2016).
In this regard, certain ways and measures can be proposed at the level of the professional
community to bring about such changes. For instance, within the professional community, the
price of education can be reduced or most preferably, eliminated. Education is the most basic
requirement of the human society as it aids them in improving their mental capacity and
intellectual level (Pitrová, 2015). Thus, professionally, the teachers can aim to provide education
to all the individuals of the society without discriminating amongst them (Dao, 2017).